


What Survives the Illusion

by unsettled



Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Genre: M/M, music meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Music meme for Hatter/Knave</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Survives the Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> For this meme:  
> 1\. Pick a character, pairing, or whatever you like.  
> 2\. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.  
> 3\. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterward!   
> 4\. Do ten of these, then post them.

1\. Relax, Take It Easy, Mika

Tarrant may be be mad, but this doesn't mean he isn't aware that he's losing it, which begs the question. If he's aware enough to ask if he's crazy, is he crazy after all? Except, of course, he's not asking. He just knows.

Knowing doesn't prevent him from pretending he's not. From pretending that he's not desperate for a little more from Ilosovic, that he's not counting the kisses until he's gone, that he's not losing the memories of all their times together – or maybe he's not losing them, per say, but that there are other memories, memories he is almost sure aren't real, slipping in, winding around those he thinks are real, and he's no longer quite sure how to separate them – if there is even any difference between them. Maybe the ones where Ilosovic smiled at him, and kissed him, and moaned into his mouth – maybe those are the ones that aren't real. 

So when Ilosovic pulls him close, Tarrant tries not to let him see how desperately relieved he is. Just because he's dying doesn't mean the longing is any less.

*

2\. The Hornburg – Howard Shore

There's a terrible moment when he looks to his queen, sees the worry tucked behind her mask, pooled in the corners of her eyes, the fear that without Alice, without their champion, there will be nothing waiting for them but defeat. He's tried to take that role, but it's not made of a shape that fits him. He thinks of telling her that all will be well, because in the end, it's already been foretold, their victory. How else can it go? Just because their champion drags her feet doesn't mean that she will not come around. 

He wants to tell her this, but it is something she should already know, so why is she worried – her worry worries him, and he feels his certainty slipping away, and he falters, feeling it all slip away, all the parts of him. He turns to the other side, reaching for reassurance, only there's no one there, and he's not quite sure who he thought should be there.

And then the ground trembles, there is a murmur from behind him, a roar, and the champion appears. He smiles, bloodthirsty, and whatever small sense of loss he had slips away. 

*

3\. Imaginary – Evanescence

There is someone too tall and too dark and too vicious talking to him, using a name that doesn't match his own, and is trying to come past him. He glances over at his hands on the door way; they are clenched tightly, drained of blood, but he can't feel anything but an odd numbness. He can't feel much of anything all over, but that's somehow familiar in a way nothing else is. _Get out_ , he says, and his tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth. This isn't right, this isn't where he wants to be. He doesn't know where he is, but the taste of ashes in his mouth makes him think it's not somewhere he wants to be aware of. The hat is in his hands, and the door is in his way, and the man is looking upset.

*

4\. Everybody Wants to be a Cat 

"Why a cat?" Tarrant asks. "When you could be, well, anything?" 

"Why not a cat?" Chessur asks in return. "Can you really think of anything better?"

"Yes," says Illosovic. "Almost anything, really." Tarrant shoots him a glare. Chessur grins, and fades. 

"You’re just jealous. Everybody wants to be a cat."

*

5\. Everything Burns – Ben Moody

"You promised," he whispers to Ilosovic's back. 

Ilosovic tenses, but doesn't turn. "I'm sorry," he says. 

"You promised you'd stay. No matter what. That's what you said." 

"I know what I said. I just –" His hand comes up, rubs at his patch. "I can't anymore. I can't." 

Tarrant says nothing more. He thinks about planting something sharp and viscous and festering in Ilosovics back, but there's a seed of doubt growing in his own mind. 

The nest time they meet, Tarrant won't even remember that Ilosoivc made a promise.

*

6\. Goodbye Apathy – One Republic

There's a tremor in his hands that wasn't there yesterday. He holds them out, level in the air, and watches them twitch and shake, and he's actually trying to hold them still now, fighting the fit, and it's not working. They continue to betray him, so slight, and yet showing so much. He bites his lip. Sets aside the hat he was working on; pulls a different one forward, one that requires lees…accuracy. 

They disappear for a week, and then come back, twice as bad, and by the end of the day, he's fighting to stand. He puts his hands flat against the table, the only place they don't tremble. He'd thought – he'd hoped; but it is too late for that. Things are only going to get worse from here – he's seen it often enough. 

"Tarrant?"

The only question – the only option – is how long he can keep it quiet. Keep it hidden. Ilosovic has sharp eyes. 

*

7\. Kodachrome – Simon and Garfunkel

He loves his queen, truly he does, but after a while, the endless pale shades that has overrun her court are incredibly tiresome. He finds he has to retreat to his rooms, throw open the cabinets and scatter the room with bolts of brilliant silks and violently colored ribbons, paint the room in vivid color, plan hats that will never see the light of day, that scream in the eyes and leave trails of color behind them. Eventually he subsides, sinks down surrounded by color and glutted on imagery. The next time he comes to court, he will have added one more bright scarf or pin or item of clothing, staining the white.

He's good enough to make white confections of sharp angles and swoops, things that are all shape and form and structure, experiments that the stark color allows without it becoming ridiculous. Good enough, but they're not what he _wants_ to make.

*

8\. Proud Mary – CCR

He doesn't consider how things might have gone, if he'd said something. If he'd sought the attention of someone tall and dark and uncertain, before he fled for the red queen's court. If he'd smiled and pulled him close and whispered suggestions in his ear. If he'd let himself be pushed up against a wall, spread his legs and arched his back and tilted his chin up, moaned as teeth caught his skin. If he'd caught a hand as the other slid out of bed, whispered _stay_ , if he'd told him that it wasn't just – that it might be something more than sex. 

He doesn't wonder what would have happened, because that is what he did, and yet, still, everything is in tatters.

*

9\. This is Halloween – Nightmare Before Christmas

"You look awfully familiar," Tarrant says. 

The skellington in the smart suit looks distressed. 

*

10\. Wanted – Vanessa Carlton

Ilosovic is lovely – and willing, and in some areas, quite talented. But he is also naive, and that doesn’t last long around here, not in any one with sense. For it to have persisted this long suggests a certain – willful refusal to see past the pretty masks. Which won't do. It's self indulgent, it's lazy, and, after the novelty has worn out, its boring. Tarrant is used to playing in the politics and intrigues and subtleties of court all his life, and it's as simple as breathing, and as necessary. This fling can't last when only one is willing to make an effort, and Tarrant's finding that he doesn't want to make the effort. He knows Ilosovic will look at him with betrayed eyes, wounded at what he sees as Tarrant's casual cruelty, but that can't be helped.


End file.
